Chinese charity donates winter clothes, food to South African children

South Africa Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a Chinese public welfare foundation's overseas branch, on Friday donated winter clothes, shoes, food and other stuff to South African children in Cape Town, to help them live better.

The beneficiaries stay in the SOS Children's Village Cape Town, launched by former South African President Nelson Mandela in 1996. These children, aged between 2 and around 18, didn't have adequate parental care before they were brought to this home-like complex with social workers, who stay with children like their mothers. Some children living there are orphans, while others lived in vulnerable situations, whose parents could be drug users or drinkers.

The donations, also including face masks and toys, are very useful to the children, as many of them even don't have a pair of proper shoes for the upcoming winter, the organization's corporate fundraiser Freroza Carlsen told Xinhua after receiving the donations.

Although there have been donors, but the organization still needs more assistance in funding and materials to provide children with better care, she said.

Carlsen said the organization receives a lot support from the Chinese community, adding that its workers go to Chinese shops to buy things like clothing as what they sell are more cost-effective and affordable.

Chen Qing, head of South Africa Soong Ching Ling Foundation, told the children living in the SOS Children's Village that she hopes they can happily grow up and study well.

The charity, which raises funds from the Chinese community, made its first donation to the organization in 2017. Last year, it donated funds to the organization when the country was in hard time due to COVID-19.

South Africa Soong Ching Ling Foundation made around five donations towards vulnerable children and schools each year before the pandemic. In 2013, it funded a 1,000 square meter building of Baphumelele Orphanage in Cape Town's impoverished township Khayelitsha, which has dormitories and other functions.

"We hope to demonstrate, through charity acts, that the Chinese community in South Africa is willing to give to local societies," Chen told Xinhua.